


Rot

by NightoftheWereHunty



Category: Peaky Blinders
Genre: Character Study, Emotional Abuse, Gaslighting, Gen, Manipulation, Sibling Relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-18
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:40:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27620807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NightoftheWereHunty/pseuds/NightoftheWereHunty
Summary: Ada spends her life reading the moods of Thomas Michael Shelby and she’s perfected it after the war. She’s learned to hear the unspoken in his words. The threats behind his whims. It’s business, Ada. That’s what she tells herself and that’s what he says. It’s all just business. Legal. Illegal. On the books or off. It doesn’t matter. It’s just business. But that was before Grace, before the Russians. Tom’s different now and all her hard work of understanding him is thrown to fucking shit. How can she hear his unspoken words if he doesn’t fucking talk anymore?***************Now she needs to be quiet. Tom’s one of those wire-trapped rooms he talks about from France. And right now, in this exact moment, he’s handed her the wire cutters. Ada knows to stay still in these situations but the whiskey, or maybe it’s the wine, makes her clumsy.“She’d want you to spend time with him,” she says and she can see the explosion in his eyes before he turns and throws his glass at the wall. She found the fucking grenade alright. Tripped right over it. He grabs her chin with his now free hand and Ada thinks about the days when he just wrote fucking lists. How could she be so naive as to think talking with him was better?
Relationships: Ada Shelby & Tommy Shelby
Comments: 10
Kudos: 24





	1. Chapter 1

When she’s feeling unkind towards herself, she thinks there’s a rot somewhere hidden, festering and spreading through her veins. Soon it’ll reach her heart. Or maybe that’s where it was hidden. Where it started, her black heart. Ada would know if she ever payed attention to that particular organ. Kidneys? Sure, have a look. Liver? Yes please, she needs it to drink. But her heart? Well, does it matter where the rot came from once it gets there? Ada doesn’t think so. And she feels it, burning and burning and burning away inside her chest until its all she can do not to cut out the charred organ herself. She thinks of Freddie, not out of love which may seem cruel, but out of curiosity. Would the infection have spread if he was alive? If she was a romantic, which she’s not, she’d have said that she doesn’t have a heart to infect. Buried it long ago with her husband, and then again with her morals, and then again with Grace so maybe Freddie’s death started something but it was something that would have happened even if he lived. Taken a little longer, maybe, but happened all the same. When she’s feeling kind towards herself, she gives the rot a name; she calls it Thomas.

Ada spends her life reading the moods of Thomas Michael Shelby and she’s perfected it after the war. She’s learned to hear the unspoken in his words. The threats behind his whims. It’s business, Ada. That’s what she tells herself and that’s what he says. It’s all just business. Legal. Illegal. On the books or off. It doesn’t matter. It’s just business. But that was before Grace, before the Russians. Tom’s different now and all her hard work of understanding him is thrown to fucking shit. How can she hear his unspoken words if he doesn’t fucking talk anymore? It’s all just lists now. Pieces of paper she has to burn when she’s through and it takes everything inside her not to chuck Tommy into the flames with his small written words. Did you get my list, Ada? Did you make your list, Ada? Have Arthur and John got their fucking lists, Ada? And Pol says he’s grieving, to give him time and he’ll be back. Back with the family where he belongs and Ada thinks while Polly drinks that Tom’s never belonged anywhere. At least, not after France. Not after the mud and the blood and the fucking bleak midwinter that the brothers always reference as if she doesn’t know what it means. As if it was something far removed from her.As if she wouldn’t be losing her entire fucking family if the bleak midwinter where to rear its bloodied, muddied head.

Ada knows about grief. She’s studied it her whole life. First with her mother and then with her father. Then Freddie and that took more than she cares to remember to make it out the other side. But she had Karl and that was important. Tommy has Charles and that’s good, but what Tommy needed was Grace. Ada won’t speak to love on another’s behalf, but if she was forced to, she’d say that Tommy belonged with Grace. And if she was drunk, like proper drunk and asked, she may even say it was Grace who lifted Tom out of the mud and the tunnels and the blood. Then Polly would roll her eyes while sipping her whiskey and Ada would remind her that she’d already said she didn’t want to talk about love while she fills her glass back to the top again. Back to the top, Ada thinks and swirls the contents of her glass. Tommy’s always trying to get back to the top. Top of the business. Top of the family. Top of the earth and tunnels and mud and fucking everything else he was before he was buried in France.

“What if you don’t get back?” She finds herself asking him one evening after too much wine and too many cigarettes and then a few more whiskeys to remind herself why the wine was too much.

“Back where?” He says after a pause to light his cigarette and he stares. His eyes catch the light of his flame and the gold of his whiskey, and for one moment, for one short, tiny, little fucking moment, he appears as a man. Just a man with his vices.

“I don’t know, Tommy. Wherever it is you need to get back to.”

Thomas puts out his cigarette with force; it’s his favorite thing to do when he doesn’t like the direction of a conversation. When it feels out of his control. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean, Mrs. Thorne,” he says and his contempt rolls off his tongue into her ears. She’s not Ada tonight. She’s a stranger sticking her nose where it doesn’t belong. And if she wasn’t so angry at being shut out, she might revel in the idea that she understands him again. That he’s back to speaking words and not writing them.

“What I mean is, Mr. Shelby,” she spits, “will it be worth it? All this? All you’ve done?” Ada watches the questions roll off Tommy’s face as he reaches for his cigarettes again. He slips one between his lips with an upward tilt of his mouth; it’s the sorta expression he wears when he finds things funny.

“I don’t know, Ms. Shelby.” So she’s back to being a Shelby now. Tommy always did like it when she fought back. That’s our Ada, he’d say when she’d come home with her bloody lips from her scraps by the cut. What poor soul crossed you today, he’d joke as if he didn’t know the reason for her bruises. As if they could pretend in that one childish moment that they weren’t scum. The lowest of the low. Poor and Gypsy and fatherless and motherless. Our Ada, he’d say as if they didn’t all spend every fucking second of their lives outside their home fighting because the world picked the fight first. “Is it worth it?” Tommy muses while he lights the tip of his smoke and stands. “You tell me,” he says and walks to the cabinet to pour himself another drink. “Those furs, that wine, your home in London. Is it worth it, Ada?”

“I’m not talking about me, Thomas,” she says angrily while sloshing some whiskey from her glass. She wasn’t expecting him to ease back into his gentle threats as soon as he began speaking again. But that’s her fault. Tommy’s a cornered beast. She knows that. Grief can make an animal still but it’ll never defang it.

“And what are you talking about, eh?” He asks louder than her outburst without turning away from his liquor cabinet. “You talking about business?”

“Fuck the business, Tom! For fucks sake!” She yells. “When was the last time you saw Charlie? You spend ten minutes with him every morning and night, that’s it,” Ada takes a pause to sigh and sip her drink. Tommy won’t look at her. He sinks his head down to rest by his glass. “He asks for you, Tom. And that’s so important right now, that he’s asking for you.” He raises his head to down his whiskey. She’s pissed him off; she can tell by the slam of his glass and the jerky motion of him refilling it. She’s too close to saying what Tommy won’t allow to be said. Grace may be dead, but God help you if you acknowledge it.

“And what does it matter to you? Eh?” He stalks towards her and points, his full glass held in front of him as if it were a bayonet at the end of his loaded words. “What is it you fucking want, Ada?” The hardness of his face makes her tense more than his volume. And then she understands his words and they pierce her skin like little needles all over. The words travel up her veins and through her blood. There it is, she thinks. The fucking rot. That he really believes this to be a transaction. That Ada would ever use his pain like that. “Please fucking tell me,” he continues, “so’s I can give it to you and you can get out of my FUCKING HOUSE.”

“I’m here because you asked me to watch your son while you were away, you fucking asshole!” She’s had too much whiskey to handle Tommy unhinged. She’ll just make it worse, she knows that. She should stop talking, go to bed, but she’s so angry and it’s that fucking infection. That rot spreading out through her heart. Tommy’s a curse, she thinks. “I tell you there’s a child up there asking for his father and the first thing you think is ‘what’s my angle?’ It’s love, Tommy. And children need it.”

“Don’t fucking tell me how to raise my son, Ada.” He lowers himself down with his words and she finds herself inches from Tommy’s wide-eyed rage. “I love him,” he says, “And I would do fucking anything for him so don’t fuckin’ talk to me about love.”

Now she needs to be quiet. Tom’s one of those wire-trapped rooms he talks about from France. And right now, in this exact moment, he’s handed her the wire cutters. Ada knows to stay still in these situations but the whiskey, or maybe it’s the wine, makes her clumsy.

“She’d want you to spend time with him,” she says and she can see the explosion in his eyes before he turns and throws his glass at the wall. She found the fucking grenade alright. Tripped right over it. He grabs her chin with his now free hand and Ada thinks about the days when he just wrote fucking lists. How could she be so naive as to think talking with him was better?

“She’d want a lot of things, Ada, so many fucking things. And the first thing she’d want would be to not be fuckin’ dead.” She’s aware of the pressure from Tom’s fingers but it doesn’t bother her as much as the difference between Tommy’s face and his voice. He’s so pale and still with his wet and red-rimmed eyes. He barely moves his lips while speaking and he looks hollow. Looks dead. But his voice shakes over every word, every syllable. She can feel the grief and anger settle between the centimeters that separate their faces. He’s losing to it. Or maybe he lost long ago and she never wanted to admit it. Tommy tightens his grip on her. “So don’t sit in my fuckin’ house, drinking my fuckin’ whiskey and tell me what Grace would want.”The second he spits out the words, he pushes her face back and lets go of her chin, but it takes days for Ada to forgot the feeling of his fingers digging into her jaw.

There’s so much to do in London and Ada needs to feel alive. Being surround by death her whole life, she thinks she deserves it. And todays version of life is in a pub with a man and lots and lots of gin. He’s a foreigner, an American, which is better for her since he doesn’t know what her last name means.

“Your drink, Ms. Shelby,” the barkeep says while setting her gin and tonic in front of her. He spares the American a nod and moves on.

“He didn’t ask you to pay,” notes the yet unnamed man.

“Got a tab,” Ada shrugs. “But more importantly, have you got a room?” The American returns her flirtatious smile.

“Of course,” he says,”Would you like to see it?”

The act is enjoyable enough and the American, named Frank she’d learned, is a generous lover, but once it’s done, she just wants to be home. Take a bath, have some tea, maybe read a little and then go to bed. She tells herself it’s late, and it is, but she knows that’s not why she wants to go. Poor Ada, she thinks. Wants so bad to feel alive but gets tired of it after only four hours.

“I’m here until Thursday,” says Frank. “Will I see you again?”

“Doubt it,” Ada says while fixing her stockings, “But you’re a good man. You’ll be alright.”

She turns the key to her door and steps into her home already warmed by a fire. She hadn’t done that. Cautious now and wishing she’d let Arthur give her that gun Monday, she sets her purse on the table near the door. For’s protection, he’d tried to tell her. Just in case, but ya don’t need to worry, Ada. We got men out there, he’d said, we’ll keep ya safe. Safe, she thinks now as she creeps down her hallway. She’ll never be fucking safe, not with family like hers. Not with her last name - either of them.

“Whose there?” She calls out before she gets closer to the drawing room.

“Hello to you too, Ada,” comes Tom’s reply. He stands by the fireplace, a glass of Ada’s whiskey already in his hands and a smoke hanging from his stern-set lips.

“Fucking Christ, Tommy,” she snaps while pulling off her gloves and tossing them onto the chair. “I locked the door. You said there weren’t anymore spare keys.”

“I lied,” he says, “Where’s Karl?”

“With Pol, but you already knew that seeing as how you know everything.”She hasn’t spoken to Tommy since she set off the bomb back at his place. That was almost three weeks ago.

“I know you wouldn’t take the gun from Arthur,” he says after a sip of his drink. Ada walks over to pour one for herself and snatches the offered cigarette from Tommy’s outstretched hand. “It makes me uneasy, Ada,” he continues, “You out there, unarmed.” He motions towards the outside with his drink.

“He says you’ve got men watching the house.” She stops to drink and smoke.

“We do,” he agrees and clears his throat, “But it still makes me uneasy.”

“Imagine that,” she scoffs, “Thomas fuckin’ Shelby, uneasy.” She turns from him to sit on the couch. She’s too tired for this. To decipher the meaning behind his words.

“Yeah,” he nods, “It makes me uneasy. You walking around unarmed, meeting with foreigners, going back to their hotels.” So that’s what this is, she thinks. He’s not uneasy. He’s mad. But Ada’s mad too. Fucking enraged, actually. The audacity of Tommy, thinking he can come into her home and wait up for her like she’s some fucking child who snuck out the house.

“Why don’t you just say what it is you want to say, Tommy,” she says. “Because if it wasn’t a foreigner, it be some man from London, or some poor soul from Birmingham. Or maybe it’s that I was out at pub? You think that improper now, is that it?”

“You usually stay out this late, Ada?” He asks without answering any of her questions.

“No,” she bites out. He nods and turns from the fireplace to sit in the chair across from her. He sets his drink on the table between them and leans back in his seat. So self assured. So fucking full of himself in her home at two in the fuckin’ morning. She hates him and with that hatred she feels the heat of that festering rot closing in around her heart, making its beats wild and bucking like a untamed stallion chained in her chest.

“That’s good,” he says. “Good it’s not a habit for you to be stepping out with American men named Frank until two in the morning.”

“Oh my god,” she sighs while she hangs her head low into her hands. “He’s not important, Tom. He’s here on holiday. He doesn’t know shit.”

“I know,” he says after a pause and sip. “I know a lot about Frank as it is. I know he arrived Sunday. He’s leaving Thursday. And he’s got a room down at the Richmond.” He stops to clear his throat and put out his cigarette. “He’s a banker,” he continues, “Works with Fryman’s Investors. Divorced. His ex-wife lives in Vienna with her bohemian lover. The bohemian’s a painter.” She can feel him watching her. Seeing if she’ll react to his words. She doesn’t want to look up. To see the smug expression he’s wearing. She’s so fucking tired, so fucking tired of this. And of him.

“I can do what I want, Tom,” she says, “I can see who I want, and I can fuck who I want.”

“Can you?”

She jerks her head up at his question. “Yeah, I fuckin’ can,” she says while staring into his cloudy blue eyes. If their not clear, his eyes that is, it means he’s drunker than he acts. Damn the Shelby men and their fucking alcohol tolerance. How long had he been drinking her whiskey waiting for her to get home? “So is that it, then? Are we done now? Can I go to bed like I wanted to when I got back to my fucking house?” She finishes her words with the last of the whiskey in her in glass. Tommy shifts in his seat to bring out his cigarette holder and lighter before he stands and grabs the whiskey off the mantle. He fills his glass, then Ada’s, and he sits back down while straightening out his jacket like a fucking king.

“No, we’re not done,” he says and lights up a smoke. “There’s some business.”

“I don’t give a fuck about business, Tom!” She snaps. “I want to go to bed.”

“There’s some business that you need to know about,” he continues as if she never spoke. “It’ll affect the family, and that includes you, no matter how much you fight it.” He points at her with his cigarette. “So from now, stay away from London pubs. Stay away from foreigners. And get back home before ten.”

“I’m not a child, Tommy.”

“Yeah?” He says sharply as he leans forward, “Then stop fuckin’ acting like one.”

She wants to cry. Not because what he says hurts; that doesn’t matter anymore. Ada wants to cry because she’s not allowed to have anything. Her home? That’s Tommy’s and the endless supply of spare keys he seems to have is proof enough of that. Her whiskey? Paid for by the Shelby Brothers Limited. Her time? Well, there’s a curfew in effect for that and watchdogs to enforce it. And now, her body. The last bit of herself she foolishly thought she owned. Tommy’ll decide who she can give it to, and if she’s being honest with herself, although honesty has always hurt Ada, she’s never really believed it belonged to her anyway. His grip on her heart tightens and tightens and tightens until the stallion bucking away inside her breaks under his slip lead. Tommy’s always had a way with horses and apparently that extends to the fucking metaphorical one she invented to justify the wild beats in her chest.

“It’s not fair,” she says, “It’s not right. You can’t control people like this, Tom. You just can’t.”

“Everyone else is following the same rules, Ada.” He breathes out smoke with his words. “And they don’t seem to have a problem following them.”

“Because who can say no to Thomas Shelby?” She shakes her head, and downs her whiskey, and reaches for another cigarette. She needs something in her hands or she’ll be tempted to lay them on Tommy. To make him feel every blow to her ego he’s ever dealt.

“No, because when I tell them to do something,” he says, “They know it’s for their own good. They know it’s for a good fucking reason.” He leans over to fill her glass again. From her bottle. Sitting in her chair and still ruling over every aspect of her small, little life.

“A good reason? Yeah, I bet you’re just fuckin’ full of them, Tommy.”

“Ada.”

“Fuck off, Tom!” She says loudly and drunkenly. If he keeps pushing her, she’ll let go. Just let the gin and the whiskey do the talking. God, how she wishes she would. Someone has too. Someone has to fucking stop him before he breaks everything. Before he breaks her. “I have to be up early,” She says, “I have to get Karl from Polly in the morning. Just let me go to bed, Tommy, please.” It’s the alcohol in her that lets slip the please. She’d never beg sober.

“Alright,” he says as he pushes himself to his feet. “That’s alright, Ada. We’ll talk again. Soon.” She doesn’t follow him to the door. She just waits to her the click of the lock before she lets loose her tears.


	2. Chapter 2

The restrictions are lifted soon enough when the business is resolved, but Ada can’t stop thinking about it; the chokehold she felt that night. She can’t stay here. She’ll go raving fuckin’ mad.She tries to remember herself. The woman who fell in love with Freddie Thorne. The woman who stood in no-man’s land between two of the stupidest groups of men she’d ever witnessed.Where’d she gone? Ada begins looking for her. In her lipsticks. In her perfumes. In her silk robes. Where could she be, the old Ada? She doesn’t allow herself to consider the worst; that the old Ada died. Succumbed to the infection called Thomas Shelby. She hears Karl waking in the other room and she stands from her kitchen table, silk flowing behind her as she walks through the cold hall towards her son. Sometimes, she feels afraid to love him. Karl’s all she has that’s rightfully hers. And if she acknowledges it, if she makes her claim, she knows Tommy’ll make his. He’s part of the family, Ada, she can already hear him saying it. Ada opens the door to Karl’s bedroom, and her son turns his beautiful, little face towards his mother.

“Good morning, my love,” she says softly and crosses the room to sit on his bed. She smoothes the soft hairs of his head and leans in to kiss his temple. Thomas will never have her son, she thinks with her lips pressed against Karl’s skin. She pulls back and smiles with wet eyes.“Let’s get you some breakfast, yeah?” she says while prodding the boy from his bed. Her son’s a Thorne, not a fucking Shelby, and if Tom ever tries to take Karl from her then God help him. She’ll take his fucking eyes. And it’s with that thought she realizes she knows where to look for the old Ada.

Of course, she still lets Karl see his cousins. It’d be cruel to deny the children like that. Kids are kept far away from the business anyway and that’s all the interaction Tommy gives Ada nowadays. So she gets confused when Tom stays sitting after she gives the name of the Bolshevik agitator. Then he mentions the position in Boston and while he describes it, she knows that he knows how fucking scared she is. And being the gracious man he is, he offers a different continent and a whole fucking ocean to protect her son from him. She knows it’s the closest she’ll ever get to a promise from Tom. Her son’s a Thorne, would say the ocean separating them from him. It’s also the closest she’ll get to acknowledgment from Tommy about his treatment towards her. It means he knows about the slip lead, the infection, and the fucking rot she’s tried so hard to keep hidden. Thomas fucking Shelby knows everything and still nothing matters to him.

She gets closer to Lizzie then she ever thought she would. Ada tries hard to not judge others, but Lizzie’s reputation had stood between them so long that she forgot. And it’s not until late one evening at the Shelby Brothers Limited almost four hours after close that Ada realizes she thinks of Lizzie as a friend. She watches the tall, dark haired beauty pour herself a drink and she sees the tired lines running through Lizzie’s face and the way her body struggles to keep her hand from shaking while she pours.

“You alright there, Lizzie?” Ada asks.

“Yeah,” Lizzie chuckles, “I’m alright.” Ada knows that line. Says it herself about five times a week.

“Is it Tom then?”

Lizzie chokes on her drink but Ada can tell it’s a laugh. “Is it that obvious?” Lizzie asks while wiping her mouth. “Of course it is,” she continues, “It’s fuckin’ stamped on my forehead.” She walks back over to where Ada sits and sinks into the chair next to her. “It’s my fault, really,” she says and takes the cigarette offered to her from Ada. “You know, I thought,” she pauses to light her smoke, “Working here, getting paid as secretary and not a whore. I thought it’d make me feel better. So it’s funny, really, how much worse I feel.”

Ada wants to tell Lizzie that she’s not a whore. Not anymore. But she can’t. The words get choked up in her throat and make her want to gag. Because they’re not true, are they? And Lizzie’s past might make it easier for the reformed street-walker to accept Tommy’s treatment. To take his words and actions as the paid wounds they are. And maybe that’s what Ada hates most about him. That he makes her, his sister, feel like a common fucking whore. Every bit of her up for sale.

“Well, you know Tom,” Ada says as she stands and pours herself another glass of whiskey. She holds the bottle out for Lizzie and the beauty leans forward to take it from her hands. “Everything has its price,” she says with a swig from her drink, “And God knows he’s got the money to pay for it.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Lizzie says while holding out her glass with a shake of her head. Ada clinks the glasses together and smiles.

“You’re not alone,” she says softly, “Not anymore.”

“It was simpler when he just wanted to fuck,” Lizzie muses then she looks up at Ada with a slight blush. “Sorry,” she continues, “I know he’s your brother.”

“Me? Related to Thomas Shelby?” Ada asks. “That’ll be the fuckin’ day.” She finishes the brown liquor in her glass and puts out of her smoke. Then she considers Lizzie’s words and she finds herself asking a question before she’s had time to think about asking it. “He doesn’t fuck you?”

Lizzie stops mid-sip to bring her eyes back from their distance and look to Ada. She swallows and sets her glass on the desk in front of them. “No,” she says, “Tom’s been seeking other women these days. Never the same one. Never more than once.” Ada nods as if the information fits into some sorta puzzle she didn’t know she was solving. “They all look the same though,” Lizzie continues, “And I don’t say it meanly, but they all look the fuckin’ same.”

“Like Grace?” Ada asks as she grabs another cigarette and lights it.

“No,” Lizzie says as she pours herself more whiskey. She caps the bottle and pushes it away from her. “No, Ada,” she sighs, “Not like her. None of them look like Grace.”

Ada tucks her conversation with Lizzie away into the cobwebbed corners of her mind. Then she forgets about it and it stays tucked away there for all of about three weeks until she goes to visit John and Esme. It’s a lively household. Makes makes her home feel haunted by comparison. If it’s not the children, running around and yelling at the top of their lungs, it’s Esme and John themselves screaming. And for all the yelling and noise that can be heard at their home, she knows it’s a happy one. They both have tempers, she won’t lie about that, and they both have too much pride. Ada’s been between enough fights of theirs to know that. But they love each other. And she bets Thomas didn’t see that coming when he forced them to get married. But isn’t love always Tommy’s weakness? She sits in the parlor of John’s home and listens to Esme loudly tell him that she didn’t want company tonight. That’s fine, thinks Ada. She doesn’t want to be here either. But Shelby business can’t wait, can it?

“Did you want some tea?” Esme asks with narrowed eyes as she sits herself across from Ada.

“No,” she answers as she takes off her gloves. “But I’ll have some whiskey if you’re pouring.”

“We’re always fuckin’ pourin’ round here,” Esme mutters as she grabs two glasses and a bottle off the mantle. “John’ll be down soon.”

“Okay,” Ada nods as she looks around and then she feels compelled to add, “It’s not just John, you know? Who I’m here to see.”

“Sorry for not jumpin’ for joy at seeing Tommy’s favorite lapdog,” Esme says as she takes a healthy gulp from her glass. Ada sighs and drinks her whiskey. She used to be close with Esme. She’s not really sure where the relationship went sour, but it probably has something to do with the rot. Ada’s missed a lot of things trying to fight the infection. At least the Gypsy will still drink in her presence. “So what were you doing there then?” Esme asks.

“Doing what where?” Ada says and fishes her cigarette holder out of her pocket.

“At the Ritz,” Esme continues, “My cousin says she saw you. Walkin’ arm in arm with Thomas after midnight.”

“I haven’t been to the fuckin’ Ritz,” Ada says. “Tell you cousin to get some fuckin’ glasses, yeah?”

Esme shrugs as if her earlier words didn’t mean anything. “I’m just tellin’ you,” she says, “So’s you can be more cautious in the future. Eyes out there everywhere.” Ada stops before she lights her smoke. She doesn’t understand.

“I’m not lying,” is the only thing Ada can think to say. “I wasn’t at the Ritz.” John walks into the room as she finishes her sentence.

“Fuckin’ hell, Esme,” he says as he grabs a glass from above the fireplace and walks towards the bottle on the table. “I told you it wasn’t Ada,”

“Right,” his wife agrees, “And now I asked her myself so I believe you.Both of you.” Esme stands and finishes her drink. “I trust my ‘usband to tell me whatever it is you got to say so I’ll be leavin’ now.”

“Yeah, fuck off,” John calls over his shoulder as he pours himself a whiskey. “Fuckin’ hell,’’ he mutters.

“Still in the honeymoon period, eh, John?” Ada can’t help but tease.

“Fuckin’ honeymoons,” he says while shaking his head. “You know, we haven’t taken it yet? Our fuckin’ honeymoon. And every time I ask her where she wants to go, she says she wants to go the fuckin’ pastures. Like I want a honeymoon spent in horse shit. Can stay in Small Heath for that.” He tips the contents of his glass down his throat and turns towards Ada. “So what’s he got to say then?” He slams his glass on the table and wipes his mouth. “Another fuckin’ list?” John asks as he holds out his hand.

“Yeah,” she sighs. “It’s another fucking list.” Ada shifts in her seat to bring out the folded piece of paper from her pocket for John.

“Great,” he says as he snatches it from her hand. “I was startin’ to worry, you know? Hadn’t gotten one in the last eight fuckin’ hours.”

“He’s trying his best, John,” and even Ada doesn’t believe the words she says.

“Yeah, I know,” John says as he swipes at his nose. She figures their sibling bond is the only thing that stops him from pushing the lie. He pulls a cigarette out his pocket and sits in the chair Esme left empty. “I believe you,” he offers as he lights his smoke and for one moment Ada thinks John might be stupid. “That it wasn’t you at the Ritz, that is,” he continues, “Not the other fuckin’ thing.” He motions towards Tommy’s list with his words. There it is, Ada smiles to herself. You can’t bullshit John and it’s good to know that hasn’t changed. He reaches for the bottle to pour another drink and sinks back into his chair with his full glass. He looks beyond strained. More like defeated. Not that it’s unexpected given the circumstances, but John’s usually faster to bounce back from Tommy’s callousness. But it’s been going on for nearly four months now so she can’t really blame him. His vest is crumpled under his jacket and it brings out the little boy hiding in his features. Ada knows if Arthur saw him like this, he’d slap his back. Come on now, he’d say. Things to do, Johnboy, ya know how it is. But it shouldn’t be like that, should it? It’s wrong, what Tommy asks of his family. Our Johnboy, she thinks and puts out her cigarette. Boy is right; he’s got too much youth left to let Tommy beat it out of him like this.

“But she did look like you,” he says and his words spark that tucked away memory of her conversation with Lizzie. “And it’s not the first time it’s happened.” He looks to the side as he speaks and lights the almost forgotten cigarette in his hand. “I wasn’t gonna say nothin’ but Esme.” He stops and sniffs before he gulps half the whiskey in his glass. “Well, she’s little rough, I know,” he continues, “but she’s a good woman.” John stops again with a sigh. He shifts in his seat and takes a long drag from his smoke as if he needs to consider his words carefully. As if what he’s got to say is something Ada won’t want to hear and he’s need to figure out how to frame it first. God bless him, she thinks. John may be able to see through bullshit, but he sure as hell can’t hide his. “It worries her,” he says, “that’s all,” and that he ends up on those words after all his seemingly careful deliberation bothers her. How odd. How honest. How like her Johnboy. Ada doesn’t know what to say so she drinks instead.

Regardless of her current standing with Esme, Ada respects her. The woman has intuition and the backbone to defend it. Esme reminds her of Polly sometimes and she wonders if that’s how Pol might’ve been while young. Headstrong, loud, and drunk, but full of the world’s secrets. Ada sits by Polly’s desk at the Shelby Brothers Limited late one evening and watches the older woman write in shorthand, her pen moving like wildfire across the paper.

“What?” Asks Polly.

“Nothing,” Ada shrugs. Pol stops writing and looks up at her. “Really, it’s nothing, Pol,” Ada says. The older woman stares at her a moment too long before she looks back down at her paper and begins her furious writing again.

“Sure,” Polly says, “It’s always nothing, isn’t it?” Ada rolls her eyes at Polly’s words. “This whole family is full of nothing.”

“Don’t take your anger out on me, Pol,” she sighs. “Whatever he’s done now, it’s not my fault.”

“Who said anything about me being angry?” The older woman snaps as she slams down her pen. “And why should I be angry? It’s doesn’t have anything to do with me. Nothing does, nowadays.” She opens her cigarette case and pulls out a long, black smoke before tapping it on the desk. Polly lights her smoke while narrowing her eyes at the flame then flicks the smoldering match to the ashtray. “So you’ve thought about Boston?”

“Yeah,” Ada says after a pause to light her own cigarette, “I think it’ll be good.”

“It’ll be a lotta work,” says Pol, “But that might be what you need right now. God knows a bored Shelby is a curse on the world.” Ada thinks about reminding Polly that she’s a Thorne now, but the words take too much effort so she lets them stay resting under her tongue. Her Aunt has her eyes closed with her head leaned back against the top of the chair. If Ada’s going to ask what she wants to, what she came here to ask, it should be now. While Pol is resting and unawares.

“Has Esme talked with you?” Ada asks.

“Oh god, why?” Asks Polly as she sits up straight in her chair and puts out her cigarette. “It’s not the count, is it?” she continues while standing and turning towards the back room containing the safe. “I swear, the women these boys bring into our home.”

“No,” Ada says before Pol can leave the room. “It wouldn’t be about business.”

Polly stops with her back facing Ada. “Should we have a drink?” She asks while turning towards the draw hiding the always present bottle. “Feels like this is a conversation where we’ll want one.” She pours two glasses of whiskey without waiting for Ada’s reply. Then the older woman walks back to her desk and holds out the glass for her niece before sitting back down. “So what would this talk with Esme be about?” Polly asks after a sip.

“Well, if you haven’t had it yet, you can’t tell me, can you?” Says Ada.

“I thought I was asking you,” says Pol as she slips out another black cigarette to sit between between her lips and then lights it. She sits quietly with her eyes focused in the distance and Ada can see her mind running through all the possibilities. “What’d John do this time?” Polly finally asks.

“Nothing,” Ada chuckles, “At least not yet, anyway.”

“Right, so it’s not about business and it’s not about John,” Polly muses and traces her fingers over her lips. Running more scenarios, Ada thinks to herself with a smile. Then her eyes shift back to Ada’s and Pol drops her hand from her face while setting her glass down on the desk. “Is it Tom?”

Just as Ada is about to nod, she sees a figure in the corner of her eye, watching them both from the doorway; an ember at the tip of his smoke illuminates the face in the dark. “Tommy! Christ!” Ada cries.

“Oh god, is it that bad?” Polly asks while seemingly unaware that the topic of their conversation stands behind her in the doorway. As if his name somehow summoned him like devil he is. He moves silently into the room like a fucking ghost.

“Hello, Pol,” he says but his eyes stay steady on Ada. Polly gasps and puts her hand to her chest.

“Oh fuck,” she sighs and moves her hand from her chest up to her temple. “Lost about five years just nowand I don’t have them to lose, I’ll have you know.”

“Have I interrupted something?” He asks as he sits in the empty chair next to Polly and across from Ada. His sister drinks from her whiskey and looks away from Tom’s eyes.

“You did,” says Polly, “but when have you ever cared?” She stamps out her smoke with her words. “So what are you doing here?” She continues. “Arthur said you wouldn’t be in until noon tomorrow.”

“Arthur doesn’t know everything, Pol,” Tommy says and Ada stands to refill her glass. “I’ll have one,” he adds and clears his throat. Ada looks up at the ceiling willing God to give her the strength she needs not to throw the bottle at Tommy’s head before she grabs another glass and fills it. She sets the bottle down harder then she means to and Tom raises his eyebrow at the sound.

“Sorry,” says Ada and hands him his drink before sitting back in her seat.

Polly shifts her eyes back and forth between the two siblings. “Right,” she says, and Ada knows her aunt’s trying to read the unspoken in the room. Well good fucking luck, Ada thinks. Lately, even she doesn’t know what Tommy’s not saying.

“Well, continue your conversation then,” he says before he takes a sip of his drink and fixes his jacket. “What does Esme need to talk with you about?”

“I don’t know,” replies Polly. Ada can feel the older woman carefully measuring out her words. “We’ve only just established it’s not about business, John, or you,” she continues.

“You’ve established that, have you?” Tom asks while staring at Ada. Her pulse quickens under his eyes and she reaches for another cigarette. “I wonder what it could be then,” he continues, “Sounded important, from the way Ada said it.”

Ada’s heart leaps an entire beat and she takes a gulp of her drink. He’d heard her. He’d heard the whole fucking thing. Does he already know? Did John tell him? It doesn’t seem like something John would share with Tommy, but maybe he didn’t have to. Tom’s smart. He could figure it out on his own. Then Ada has a thought and she feels herself grow cold as she considers it. What if he hasn’t been trying to hide it? She replays John’s words now. But she did look like you, he’d said, and it’s not the first time it’s happened. Jesus Christ. The whiskey in her stomach makes a jump for her throat but Ada catches it with a small gulp of air.

“You alright, Ada?” Tommy asks and she nods as she leans forward to light her cigarette off his offered flame. She’s thankful she didn’t have to light it herself or else the shaking of her hand would have been made clear.

“It’s just women’s talk, Tom,” Ada says while avoiding his eyes and leaning back in her chair. “It wouldn’t interest you.”

“This is an equal opportunity enterprise, as you both know,” he says. “What makes you think I’m not interested?”

“She just wants to Pol to do her gypsy witchcraft,” Ada says while pointing at Polly with her smoke and she feels her aunt watching her as she speaks. “Tell her the sex of the baby and other mystical unknowns.” Please God, catch on Aunt Pol, Ada thinks.She can’t calm the beats of her heart, not with the infection so close, so hot and burning next to her skin.

“Of course she does,” Polly says firmly. “Who else would she go to? Doctors?” She laughs with her words and her laughter soothes a bit of Ada’s heart. Her Aunt Polly is such a clever woman. “Those men in their white coats wouldn’t recognize a woman’s body if it wasn’t stretched out beneath them.” And even Tommy cracks a smile at Polly’s words.

“I’m here for the ledgers,” he says in answer to Polly’s question asked long ago and puts out his cigarette. Polly nods and gathers the stack together. “I want to look over them before my meeting in the morning,” he says after finishing the whiskey in his glass. He stands and accepts the books that Pol holds out for him. “You leaving, Ada?” He continues while towering over his sister. “I’ll give you ride.”

“I’ll just get a cab, Tom.”

“It’s safer,” he says, “Riding with me. Come on, let’s go.” He walks towards the door and holds it open without waiting for her reply. Polly watches Ada with wide eyes as her niece stuffs her cigarettes back into her purse and stands. Her clever Aunt, Ada finds herself thinking again. Her aunt slips another long black smoke between her lips and furrows her brow while she lights it. Then Pol stands, smoke clenched between her teeth to gather the empty glasses and Ada can feel her eyes on her as the younger woman makes her way to the door. Pol means well, she really does, but it’s unnerving having two sets of Shelby eyes watching her every move. Ada can’t put on a show for both Tommy and Polly. She’ll have to choose, she knows. And she fears a conversation with Pol about her awkwardness less than she does the same one with Tom. Ada avoids her aunt’s eyes despite the older woman’s searching and insisting stare to slip between Tommy and the door. Of course Polly’s worried too. How could she not be when Tom doesn’t even try to disguise it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I’m getting into the grittiness of their relationship. Period sexism aside, the way Tommy exerts control over Ada’s life has always felt off to me. As if she’s both the whore and the madonna to Tom. I wondered how a man like Thomas would deal with those feelings and this is the chapter that emerged.


	3. Chapter 3

Tommy pulls the car to the side of the road in front of Ada’s home and turns off the engine. She pauses in her exit, her hand resting on the door handle, and turns to face him. He’s not looking at her and she takes it as a sign that she should leave so she opens the car door.

“Not going to invite me in for a drink, Ada?” he says while reaching into his pocket for his lighter and a cigarette, “After I drove you all the back way home to London.” Ada sighs while she closes the door and looks over her shoulder at him. He still won’t look at her as he slides a smoke between his lips.

“I don’t want to wake Karl,” she lies.

“Then it’s not a problem,” he says as he lights the cigarette, “Seeing as how Karl’s with Lizzie tonight.” He turns to face her as he speaks and the only light on him comes from the ember at the end of his smoke. She can see his eyes though. Glinting and glaring. The cold blue almost frozen in whatever anger he decided she deserves tonight. “Is there a reason you’re lying, Ada?” He asks. “Got a man up there maybe? Waitin’ on you to get back home?” he continues as he leans over her to open the closed car door, “Go on then. Make your money.”She looks down at her lap and squeezes her hands into fists around her purse. How fucking dare he, she thinks. How fucking dare he speak to her like that. His words cause the stallion in her chest to start kicking and snorting and pulling and thrashing against Tom’s slip lead until Ada feels herself wanting to gag from the choking sensation. Her hand moves before she realizes what she’s doing and she slaps Tom hard across his face. Ada feels her skin sting under the cloth of her glove. Tommy seems not to feel anything. He opens his car door and tosses his ruined smoke to the road before he gets out of the car himself and walks over to Ada’s side. Her door is still open from before the slap and he grabs her by the arm, hard enough to scare her, but not enough to hurt. He’s fucking sick, she thinks, for even knowing the difference. He slams the car door shut behind her.

“Tommy,” she says quickly as he pulls her up the steps to her home. “Tommy, let go.” He ignores her and slips a key from his pocket into her front door to unlock it before he pushes her inside her home. Ada stumbles over the threshold of her own fuckin’ house but catches herself with her hands on her banister. “Tommy,” she repeats, but he’s not listening to her. He’s too busy pushing himself up her fuckin’ stairs and stalking down her hallways. The fucking nerve of him. Ada rights herself and takes her gloves off her aching hands. Tommy won’t find him, she thinks, the man his looking for. Because there’s no one, is there? Not for her. Not since Freddie. Not in this cursed fuckin’ life. But God, how she wishes there was right now, if only to see Tom’s face when he finds him. Ada hears the bang of every door he throws open while he looks for the imaginary man that waits for her. Tom’s footsteps get louder and louder and he’s halfway down her stairs when she looks up from where she scraped her hand during her fall. Thomas points at her with his arm taunt as he descends the steps, his face red and furious behind it.

“Don’t fuckin’ lie to me, Ada,” He commands loudly as he covers the distance between them. “You don’t fucking lie to me,” he says, softer now that he’s closer to her, “Because if you lie about little things, Ada. Little things, yeah?” He asks sharply while reaching for Ada’s face as she wildly tries to twist out of Tommy’s grasp. “I’ll start to wonder,” he continues sounding near short of air as he digs his fingers into the flesh of her cheeks, “I’ll start to wonder, if you’ll lie about the bigger ones too.”

“You’re hurting me, Tom,” she says as she works her hand around his wrist. She seeks out his eyes, relieved to see clear blue staring back instead of a cloudy storm. He’s not drunk, not yet anyway. She pushes his hand off her face and he lets her. Thomas steps back but keeps his eye contact with Ada steady.

“It’s gonna be family, Ada,” he says in a shaky breath. “For every lie that comes through our fuckin’ door, it’s gonna be us that pays for it. Do you understand?” He’s pointing again by the end of it and Ada understands. She sees his pale and sleep-deprived face. The trembling effort it takes his body to keep still. She knows the truth of Tommy’s words. And despite all her anger at him, and how small he makes her feel, and how much he fuckin’ scares her still in this moment, Ada understands that Tommy is terrified right now. And he hates it, she knows that he does. How could he not? It means someone else is bigger, stronger; it means Tom’s out of his depth. He’s getting buried, she thinks. Sinking back into his fuckin’ tunnels and mud; except this time, there’ll be no Grace to guide him out. Ada almost feels sorry for him.

“What is it you’ve gone and done?” She asks but he doesn’t answer her. He walks away from where she stands near the entrance of her home, where he’d grabbed her face only minutes ago; he winds down her hallway to reach her drawing room. By the time Ada makes her way back to follow him, he’s already pouring two glasses of whiskey from the bottle on her table. “What is it you’re not telling me, Tom?” She asks again as he sinks into the chair closest to the fireplace. His runs his hands over his face and through his hair before he takes a gulp of the alcohol in his glass. Then Thomas looks at her, and all his anger, all the rage and fear she’d felt gripping her flesh in-between his fingers back at her door, is gone. Tom’s quiet and empty now. Lost, Ada reckons, trying to figure out what it is he’s supposed to feel. What is he should be sharing but can’t. “Fine then,” she says as she swipes the glass poured for her off the table. “Don’t fucking say anything. Just keep burstin’ into my home, scaring the ever loving fuck out of me. Why should I give a shit?” She downs the whiskey in her glass and walks towards her cigarette holder on the end-table near the couch.

“It’s just-”

“Business, Ada,” she finishes his sentence for him before she lights her smoke. “I know. It’s always business, Tommy.” She looks away from him as she waves her smoking match in the air and tosses it into the fireplace behind her. “So Russian business then?” She continues, “Or would it be Irish?” Tommy smiles slightly at her ill-hidden barb.

“Not Irish,” he says as he pulls out a cigarette from his pocket, “Not this time.”

“And not Russian either, I’m guessing,” she says as she sits on the couch across from him.

“Not this time,” he repeats as he lights his smoke.

“Well, it must be bad,” she says after a moment. “To have you this scared.”

“I don’t get scared, Ada,” he says and she can’t help but laugh at his words.

“Sure, Tom,” she says with a sad smile, “And I don’t ever get mad at you.”

Tom raises his eyes to hers with her words and he looks tired. Almost as tired as she feels. Maybe he’s sick of it too, she thinks, of the way he treats her. Of the way he treats himself.

“Should I fix a room?” She asks. He lowers his eyes back down from her to his drink and takes a sip before he stands.

“No, I should see Charlie,” he says, “Someone yelled at me about not spending enough time with him.”

“They sound smart,” Ada says, “Whoever they are.”

“Yeah,” Tommy agrees, “They’re a pain, but they’re smart. I can’t lie about that.” He finishes his drink and puts his empty glass back on the table. He pulls his razor-bladed cap out his coat pocket and fixes it a top his head. Ada follows behind him as he walks back down her hallway towards her front door. He opens it, then he stops and closes it, all without turning to face her. “You alright?” He asks.

Ada turns his question over in her mind, trying to figure out what he’s asking about in particular. Can’t be her emotions. Tommy doesn’t give a shit about those; hers or anyone else’s. He might be trying to apologize though. For the way he’d pulled her from the car, thrown her into her house, and squeezed her mouth shut with his hand. He wants to say sorry; Ada can feel the words standing between them. But how do you apologize for treating someone like that? You don’t, she thinks, not really anyway. Because if he’d felt sorry about it, he wouldn’t have treated her that way in the first place. If Tommy really regretted his actions, he wouldn’t have done them; he wouldn’t have furthered the infectious rot already out of her control with the force of his earlier hands. He needs reassurance, she realizes. That Ada won’t leave him or the family.

“I’m fine, Tom,” she says feeling colder than she was before his question. And maybe he actually hears her this time; her unspoken words. Because he turns around to face her, and he pushes the hair that’s fallen out from behind her ear back into place with a gentle touch of his fingers. She pulls back just enough to see the dim light of the far away fireplace flash in Tommy’s eyes, and she remembers him when he was ten, all long-armed and scrawny; and how even back then his worried, brotherly eyes seemed to catch every light around her like a one of them vacuums in space she’d read about.

“I’m sorry, Ada,” he says and he means it. She watches the door close behind him and Ada thinks the words are the cruelest thing Tommy’s ever said to her.

What’s she supposed to with it, Tom’s apology? It sits in her mind and her heart for the next four days and nights, just as heavy and overbearing as the man who said it. The more she replays the words, the angrier she gets. What’s he sorry about then? Sorry for the way he controls her? Sorry for the way he takes his angry out on her? Sorry for the fuckin’ bruise fading on her upper arm where he’d grabbed her or the purple tint hiding under the powder near her jaw? What is it that Thomas Shelby ever has to be sorry about? Ada dabs a red stain to her lips and sighs as she studies her reflection in the mirror. The opening of Grace’s institute is today. She’ll have to smile and play nice. The cameras will be there and the journalists will be behind them. She can’t make any mistakes today, she thinks as she slips an earring through the hole in her earlobe.

And then, its not Ada who fucks up; it’s Tom. He’s distracted, she can tell from how he lets some fancy looking man in a suit lead him over to a group of middle aged woman. Charlie pulls at her earring and she coos at him while moving his little hand off her jewelry. The boy doesn’t like it, her moving his hand, and he starts to wail as he reaches back out for her earring. Tom should be holding him, Ada thinks, not her. She tells Tom that and hands the child over to his father. It’ll look good for his image to be seen holding his own son. The flashbulbs of the cameras start going off and Tom is surrounded by a horde of unfamiliar faces. Ada goes to get a drink and find her own son. She smiles at Polly from across the room and her aunt returns the expression as the older woman points Karl towards his mother. Ada blows a kiss to her son and waits for him to reach her from across the room filled with people. A hand on her upper arm brings her out of her happiness and she looks up at Tom.

“Where’s Charlie?” He asks and she tells him that she gave Charles to him not two minutes ago. By the time Ada realizes that Tom handed Charles over to some random fucking woman in a uniform, his son is already taken away in a car from the premises.

“That’s how they get you,” Polly says. She and Ada sit at her desk at the Shelby Brothers Limited waiting for the phone to ring. “Women always get overlooked. It’s just a maid, they think. What harm could she do?” Pol sighs and pulls out a black cigarette from her purse. “He puts too much trust in ‘em,” she says with the smoke between her lips before she lights it.

“I don’t think Tom puts his trust in anything,” Ada says softly.

“Well, God knows he won’t now,” Pol continues and leans back in her seat. “He just handed him over. His fuckin’ son. Just dropped him into the arms of a woman he’d never seen before in his life. Men are stupid like that, Ada.” She pauses to ash her smoke and stands to walk towards the whiskey and glasses. Polly gestures with a glass towards her niece and Ada nods. Whiskey’s probably the only thing her stomach can handle right now, Ada thinks as she slips out her cigarettes from her purse. “I don’t know what’s gonna fuckin’ happen,” Polly says as she sits back down with two full glasses. “If we don’t find him.”

“We’re gonna find him, Pol,” Ada insists. The two women sit in silence, neither one of them willing to break the spell that Ada’s words cast over the room. 

The magic works because not even five minutes later, Michael walks into Shelby Brothers Limited carrying a crying Charlie in his arms. Ada stands and runs over to take the boy from Michael. She kisses all over the child’s face and hugs him to her chest. She almost doesn’t believe he’s back and safe in her arms, scared that if she puts him down, he might disappear again and it’d just be her and Pol still waiting in the empty office. She raises her eyes from Charlie’s tear-stained face and looks at Polly in time to see the older woman pull Michael into her arms. Ada looks directly into Michael’s eyes but he doesn’t seem to see her. Doesn’t seem to see anything actually. He stares straight ahead while his mother runs her fingers over his face and through his hair. Ada had high hopes for Michael, that he’d somehow stay above the mud and blood of this cursed family, and now he stands before her fuckin’ covered in it. It’s not just her who has things they want to protect from Thomas Shelby, Ada knows now while watching Polly wipe blood from Michael’s face. The sight breaks Ada’s heart.

Arthur arrives to drive Ada and Charlie back to Tommy’s. Wait for me, he’d said over the phone to her; don’t go anywhere with anyone who isn’t family. She holds Tommy’s son to her chest and looks out the car window at the dark streets.

“Looks fuckin’ peaceful, don’t it?” Arthur asks her after a moment.

“Yeah, it does, ” Ada agrees.

She takes Charles up to his room and she changes him into his bedclothes after she gives him a bath. The child babbles at her as she pushes his arms into his sleeves, but Ada hears the unmistakable; “Mama” he says as he looks up at her. And that word forces the tears Ada’s been fighting for the last six hours out of her eyes. She covers her mouth with her hand. She doesn’t want to scare Charlie by crying but the sobs work themselves out around her fingers. She can’t stop them. She doesn’t even know what’s making her cry. The relief of seeing Charlie maybe. Or the crushing guilt that its her comforting him and not Grace. Not his mother. She might even be crying for Michael, Ada thinks. But whatever it is, she can’t stop. She buries her face in Charlie’s neck and wraps herself around the small boy as she rocks them both back and forth.

Ada walks down the stairs, her eyes still red and wet from her crying, and she spies Arthur standing with his hat in his hands near the door. Her brother clears his throat as she reaches the last step.

“I uh, I heard ya,” he says, “Thought maybe, ya’d want to be alone.”

Ada smiles at Arthur and wipes her eyes. “So you thought,” she says “you’d wait at the bottom of the stairs for me since I want to be alone?” She allows a tired laugh to color her words. Arthur grins back at her.

“Well, ya know,” he says, “It’s hard for me to leave ya all alone when I can hear ya crying.” They stand awkwardly by the stairs and Ada thinks to herself that Arthur’s always been shit at comforting her. But it’s sweet, really, how he keeps trying. “Have a drink with me, Ada,” he continues, “Let’s forget this whole fuckin’ day cause it’s over now, yeah? It’s fuckin’ done.” She nods. Then she starts to cry again. Arthur drops his hat and steps forward to pull Ada into his arms. “Hey, it’s okay,” he says as he squeezes her, “It’s okay. It’s all okay now, Ada.” She cries harder and digs her fingers into the wool of his coat. He smells like cigarettes, smoke, and gunpowder, and Ada knows that Arthur’s telling himself it’s okay as much as he’s telling her. The siblings break their embrace and her brother reaches up to her face to wipe the tears off her cheek. “Come on, Ada,” he says, “I haven’t seen ya cry since ya was a little girl.”

“And you probably did something awful back then to me, to make me cry,” she says with a soft chuckle and pushes against her eyes with her palms.

“Yeah,” Arthur laughs. “I think, uh, I think me and Tom threw your doll in the cut.”

“Sounds about right,” she says with a shake of her head. “A drink sounds good.”

Ada drinks wine while Arthur sticks to whiskey. They’ve been sitting for more than hour when Ada finally convinces him to try a sip from her glass and she almost pisses herself laughing at his face as he spits the wine onto the polished floor of Tommy’s kitchen.

“Tastes like horse shit,” he says as he wipes his mouth.

“Cause it’s from France,” Ada laughs and spills more red onto the floor.

“Yeah?” Arthur asks and he grins. “I’ve been there, and if that’s the shit they drink nowadays,” he says while casting a disgusted looking glance at her glass, “I ain’t ever goin’ back.” Ada keeps laughing and stands to find a towel to clean up all the wine on the floor. “Just leave it,” Arthur continues as he slips two cigarettes out and holds one up for Ada. “After all the cleaning up ya do for Tom’s messes, least he can do is wipe up your spills.” Ada takes the cigarette from her brother and sits back down, turning his words over this way and that in her foggy, wine-filled mind.

“I don’t do that much,” she says after a pause and Arthur scoffs while he fishes his lighter out of his pocket.

“Please Ada,” he says, “You’re his wife in everything but his bed.” He holds out the lighter for her and she leans forward to accept the flame. Arthur stares back at her, all mirth from their earlier joking gone from his eyes. “John told me that he talked with ya,” he says after he lights his own cigarette. “I’ve been meaning to talk with ya too.”

Ada’s mouth dries out when she hears Arthur’s words. She’s either too drunk or not drunk enough for whatever he’s about to bring up with her. She chooses not drunk enough and pours the remaining wine that’s in her glass down her throat before she fills her glass again. Arthur watches her silently. Ada forgets sometimes, that Arthur’s the oldest, and it’s moments like this one that remind her.

“My baby sister,” he says while looking at her.

“I’m your only sister, Arthur,” says Ada before she takes another sip of her wine.

“That we know of,” he corrects with a toothy smile. “Could be hordes of Shelbys out there,” he says while tilting his head towards the window, “Ya know dad weren’t sticking around to find out.”

“A horde of Shelbys?” Ada asks. “Sounds like a fuckin’ nightmare.”

“If they’re all like me and Tom? End of the world,” he says with a sip of his whiskey. “But maybe some would be like ya, eh?” Arthur continues, “Maybe some of ‘em would think above the earth. Cause that’s the difference, ain’t it? My head, Ada, it’s still fuckin’ buried, yeah?” He knocks his fist against his temple as he sets his glass on the kitchen table. Ada refills it by instinct. “I’ve accepted it. Working in the dark,” he says as he picks up his now full glass, “I have accepted that I am a man who can carry a burden.”

Arthur’s always been shit at comforting Ada, she realizes now, because he’s been hurt so much worse than her. The oldest son, but incompetent. Overtaken by Tommy, and now delegated to the shadows. It’s Arthur who has to look men in the eye before they die and unlike John, Arthur thinks he deserves it. Arthur thinks it’s him and not Tommy who writes his story. At least John’s angry, Ada thinks. At least he knows that Tom is wrong. She looks at Arthur and she sees his burden. The six innocent lives he choose for tonight to ride the train set with explosives. Her brother finishes the whiskey in his glass and pours himself a refill. “But ya,” Arthur says, “Ya shouldn’t have to carry one.”

The room is quiet after his words. Ada uses the silence to consider telling Arthur about the rot. How Tom’s words and actions towards her have forced her mind, body, and soul into a constant fight. How if she drops her guard, for a moment, a second even, the infection will overtake her and burn away any remaining Ada. Is that not a burden?

“I’m gonna give ya some advice, Ada,” her brother continues after the silence, “Just ignore it. Ya got a choice cause Tom don’t know about it yet.” He says and puts out his smoke. “It’s clear he don’t know about it,” he continues softer, “And it’s best it stays that way. Let sleeping dogs lie, ain’t that right, Ada?” He takes another sip of his drink and fixes his stare on on her. “It’ll pass. When you go off to Boston, it’ll pass.”

Ada stares back, unblinking, before she takes a drag off her cigarette with lips plum tinted from her wine. When she goes to Boston, she thinks. Everyone keeps saying it. Sure, she wants to go. She’s gonna fuckin’ go but she’s tired of everyone telling her she should. She’s tired of having this conversation without anyone ever stating in words why she needs to leave. And more importantly, Ada’s shit-faced after almost two bottles of wine, and she reasons that’s her excuse for asking the actual question that comes out her mouth. “You mean him fuckin’ whores that look like me?” She says. Arthur coughs whiskey onto his vest and wipes his mouth as he widens his eyes at his sister.

“That’s one way to fuckin’ say it,” he says after clearing his throat and he sets his glass on the table. “Christ, Ada,” he continues as he pulls out another cigarette, “Ya never hold your fuckin’ punches, do ya? It’s a delicate subject, ya know? I’m tryin’ to chose me words fuckin’ carefully.” He pauses to light his smoke before he says, “And ya come out with a fuckin’ slugger. Boom! What do ya want me to tell ya, eh?”

“I don’t know,” she scoffs and pours more wine. “Maybe that it’s wrong. You could say it’s fucked up, you know?”

“Well,” he says and shifts in his seat, “I did say it was a delicate subject, yeah?” Arthur refills his drink and sighs. “Fuck it,” he says, “Ya know I’m shit at things like this... so I think the only way is to just fuckin’ say it.” Then he stops and his eyes rest on Ada’s hand poised over the ashtray before he points. “It’s about to burn ya,” he says as he shift to bring out a new smoke for his sister. Ada smushes the embers of her filter into the glass and takes the smoke from Arthur. “Right then,” he continues, “From me heart, Ada, straight from me fuckin’ heart.” He taps his hand to his chest. “Ya do too much for him. He relies on ya, sister. Ya need to step back for ya own good. Cause Tom, he’ll use ya. If you’re there, he’ll use all of ya he can get.”

Ada may be drunk but she knows what Arthur said. And if he can admit that Tom uses her than he knows that Tom uses him too. The realization shapes more of Arthur’s burden into tragic clarity within her mind; it’s not that Arthur doesn’t know Tom is wrong, it’s that her oldest brother hates himself enough to be knowingly used. Because he doesn’t deserve better, but apparently, Ada does. Arthur admitted defeat to Tom long ago, she thinks and the thought fills her with rage. It’s not fair, how fucking far the rot has spread. She’d thought it was just her fighting it but Tommy’s been slowly poisoning everyone around him. She watches Arthur finish the rest of the whiskey in his glass

“It’s wrong, what he asks you to do. John is right,” she says fiercely. She’s not exactly mad at Arthur but he’s here sitting in front of her. “He can’t treat you like this, Arthur. Those men on that train-”

“Are dead,” he interrupts her, “Those men are dead, Ada, and I chose them. I set the explosives and I pulled the fuckin’ trigger.” He refills his whiskey and leans forward across the table to look at her face. “So I’m gonna pretend like ya didn’t say that,” he continues, “Foryour sake and for Tom’s.”

For her sake, really? She shakes her head and sinks back into her chair with her wine. He won’t listen to her. It doesn’t matter how she says it, she thinks; Arthur doesn’t want to hear it. “You’re not a bad man, Arthur,” she says quietly.

“Not a bad man, eh?” He says with a sip of his drink as he stands from his chair. “Just a good soldier then, I guess.” He grabs his jacket off the back of his chair and slips his arms into it while tugging his hat out of his jacket’s pocket. “Just a good soldier by order of the Peaky Blinders.” He fixes his hat atop his head and finishes the whisky in his glass before he moves his eyes to rest on Ada. “Ya look exhausted, sister,” he continues, “Get some rest before Tommy gets home and fuckin’ sober up.” He points at her quickly with his words before he continues, “And ya mind your words around Tom. Remember, let sleeping dogs lie, sister. Let ‘em fuckin’ lie.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve been wanting to write Arthur for so long now because he such a sweet little boy trapped the body and mind of a monster. Please let me know what you think. I’ll be out of season three soon enough since I want to cover some of Ada’s time in Boston and her involvement with Tom during the year the family was estranged.
> 
> I’m also considering doing a pod fic of this story, accents and all.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think. I may write more because the relationship between Tommy and Ada fascinates me.
> 
> Edit: Yeah, I’m writing more lol


End file.
